• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 11, 2006

Much of the buzz surrounding rapid consumer adoption of new portable video platforms such as video cell phones, iPods, PSPs and Slingboxes, appears to be more a function of industry hype than reality. That's the conclusion of a major new study about how people are using mobile video devices, which while popular among the media, still have low penetration and relatively low usage levels among consumers.

Findings of the study, "How People Use Mobile Video," conducted by Knowledge Networks, authors of the ongoing "Home Technology Monitor," will be released today, but a first-look provided to MediaDailyNews reveals that half of all people who subscribe to video-enabled cell phones - by far the most deployed of the new mobile video technologies - never use those devices for viewing video.

As for video iPods, the device that seems to have galvanized the media industry and Madison Avenue around the notion of a portable video marketplace, 30 percent of that device's owners never use it for viewing video.

"There are a lot of echoes of the whole DVR thing in 2000, when everyone in the industry was running around thinking, 'It's the end of the world,' but the reality was that very few people had them and were using them," says David Tice, vice president-client service at Knowledge Networks/SRI and director of "Home Technology Monitor."

In fact, Tice notes that a far more pervasive use of mobile video, including downloads from iTunes, YouTube and other popular video sites, is not on hand-held devices, but on personal computers.

"The way most people are getting access to mobile video is through a laptop and not through a video cell phone or a video iPod," he says, noting that the report should help influence how various stakeholders - media and technology companies, advertisers and agencies - develop strategies for the new technologies.

In an encouraging finding for Madison Avenue, 88 percent of people who do download video to portable devices said they would prefer to watch a pre-roll commercial or some other form of advertising than to pay for the video content.

But Tice says it will likely take years to see how long-term patterns for mobile video usage actually manifest, noting that penetration among the devices is still relatively small, especially for some of the newer and potentially disruptive devices.

"We focused on the detailed use of the Big 3," Tice says, referring to laptops, cell phones and iPods, "but we went out and tried to find awareness and incidence to be all the major players, including the Slingbox and [Sony's] PSP. And really the ownership and awareness is really small for most of those."

Tice says the study found that only 9 percent of the sample claimed to own a PSP and two-thirds of those actually used it to watch videos. Only 1 percent said they owned a Slingbox, and only 23 percent of the sample said they were even aware of the new technology, which lets consumers take their video wherever they go.